


i'm a believer (got a fever running through my bones)

by voxofthevoid



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Butt Plugs, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Developing Relationship, Dominance and Submission, Fluff and Smut, Knotting, M/M, Marathon Sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mild S&M, Oral Sex, SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes, Semi-Public Sex, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: Everyone knows Captain America is an alpha. His tragic romance with Howard Stark is as popular a topic for movies and academic papers as his exploits in the war. Sure, Stark never said a word, and he clearly moved on, given that Tony Stark is currently alive. But even now, people like to gossip in hushed whispers about how sad it is that Howard Stark passed away a mere two years before they found the good Captain in the ice.Bucky gets it, alright? Alpha/omega is the norm. Matches sanctioned by god or whatever bullshit your conservative Christian sect of the day likes to ramble about. It’s the twenty-first century, and the world still runs on a maddening policy of straight until proven otherwise. Thing is, Bucky has most certainly proven otherwise and has been doing so since he was a wee alpha panting after some knothead or the other because being queer didn’t magically make him any less stupid than your average horny teenager.Bucky’s an alpha, Bucky likes alphas, and he’d love nothing more than to climb Steve Rogers like a goddamn monkey bar.-Steve meets Bucky on a flaming helicarrier. It’s not the most romantic first meeting, what with the Nazis and the bullet wounds, but they make it work.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 192
Kudos: 1574
Collections: DarkBloodWolf13's Collection





	i'm a believer (got a fever running through my bones)

**Author's Note:**

> How many CapSteve/ShieldBucky AUs can I write? Far too many, is the answer.
> 
> You can find me [here](https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.

Steve meets Bucky Barnes for the first time on a burning helicarrier.

Well, not quite.

The helicarrier is full of bullet holes but a whole five minutes away from actually burning when Steve’s would-be assailant falls to the floor with a neat hole in his forehead. And a second of eye contact with the S.H.I.E.L.D agent collapsed a couple of layers below Steve doesn’t count as meeting him.

But the agent salutes Steve with the hand not holding a gun and grins like he’s not bleeding out of a couple of bullet holes himself, and that’s what Steve will remember, whenever he thinks of how me met Bucky.

“Charlie lock,” he snaps, Hill’s voice buzzing in his ear. “Got a man down, get us out of here.”

And if it was only Steve up here, maybe, just maybe, he’d tell her to fire. Let the whole thing _burn_.

But there’s a man here who’s dying but not yet dead and will surely be if Steve lets it end now. He could still be Hydra, for all that he saved Steve, but there’s an equal chance that he’s not, and that’s not a risk Steve’s willing to take, not a life he’s willing to add to the ones that have already been lost.

He jumps from a beam, lands on another, and reaches the fallen agent in a couple of seconds.

“Hold tight,” he says, sweeping the man into his arms.

He smells like blood and, under the chemical stench of scent-blockers, pained alpha.

“Captain,” he gasps, pain and incredulity coloring his hoarse voice. “Don’t be a fucking martyr.”

But Steve’s already running.

“Agent,” he says, “shut the fuck up.”

The man laughs, and even drenched in pain, it’s a bright, beautiful sound.

“That’s Sergeant Shut The Fuck Up to you,” he says, and it makes no damn sense, but Steve remembers it later, finds that he can’t forget it.

-

“My hero returns,” Bucky says, batting his eyelashes at Steve when he visits Bucky for the fifth day in a row.

A tiny part of him, the professional part probably, is horrified that he’s flirting – and terribly at that – with Captain goddamn America. Bucky counters that Captain America is the distant ideal of truth, justice, and the American way while Steve Rogers is an awkward but unconsciously charming man who brings Bucky a different kind of flower each day, and it’s Steve that Bucky’s flirting with, not Captain America.

It doesn’t make much sense, that distinction, but Bucky clings to it for the sake of his own sanity.

“Way I remember it,” Steve says, with that faint, wicked grin that goes to Bucky’s heart and dick both, “you’re my hero.”

Bucky shuts his mouth with a click. He has no idea what to say to that so he says nothing, watching silently as Steve replaces the wilted flowers from yesterday with fresh ones. Red roses instead of white lilies.

Bucky eyes the new ones intently, wondering if Steve even knows the symbolism. He’s got to. It’s pretty fucking obvious. Everyone and their mother know what red roses stand for.

And yet–

“You’re not doing this because you think you owe me, right?” Bucky blurts out.

He immediately wants to kick himself, but when Steve turns around with a furrow in his brow, Bucky meets his eyes and doesn’t retract the question. Instead, he adds, “Let’s say I did save you. I doubt you needed it. And you saved me right back. We’re even. You don’t have to keep doing this.”

Steve folds his arms across his chest, an aggressively defensive gesture. His expression is blank, and his voice, when he speaks, is equally devoid of emotion.

“Do you not want me to come?”

“That’s not what I said,” Bucky says, shoving down the temptation to duck his head and run from this entire conversation. He’s an adult, he _can_ adult. “I do want you around. Just not if you think it’s an obligation or some shit.”

“It’s not obligation,” Steve says, softly but firmly. His arms fall to his sides. “I’m here because I want to be.”

There’s note of finality in his voice, of command; Steve’s an alpha all the way down to his bones and it shows.

That’s just the thing though. Everyone knows Captain America is an alpha. His tragic romance with Howard Stark is as popular a topic for movies and academic papers as his exploits in the war. The brave alpha captain and the omega civilian waiting for him to come home – no wonder people still eat it up. Sure, Stark never said a word, and he clearly moved on, given that Tony Stark is currently alive. But even now, people - S.H.I.E.L.D agents included – like to gossip in hushed whispers about how sad it is that Howard Stark passed away a mere two years before they found the good Captain in the ice.

He gets it, alright? Alpha/omega is the norm. Matches sanctioned by god or whatever bullshit your conservative Christian sect of the day likes to ramble about, and boy, is it hard to get even some non-fanatics to accept that no, it’s not unbearably tragic that you’re passing on the option of magic mind bonds.

It's not like attraction is a _choice_ , for fuck’s sake.

It’s the twenty-first century and the world still runs on a maddening policy of straight until proven otherwise.

Thing is, Bucky has most certainly proven otherwise and has been doing so since he was a wee alpha panting after some knothead or the other because being queer didn’t magically make him any less stupid than your average horny teenager.

Bucky’s an alpha, Bucky likes alphas, and he’d love nothing more than to climb Steve Rogers like a goddamn monkey bar.

Problem is, Steve doesn’t know that.

S.H.I.E.L.D requires – well, required – its agents to wear industrial-grade scent-blockers, and by now, it’s a habit Bucky doesn’t want to shake. Sharon brought his to the hospital along with other essentials back when he woke up, a full day before Steve visited him for the first time.

Steve doesn’t _know_. And Bucky feels almost guilty because red roses have been relatively subtle as compared to the other signs of interest Steve has been projecting.

“Bucky?”

Steve’s gentle voice prods at Bucky.

“I – yeah, I like it too. I like you here too.”

Steve’s smile is a dangerous thing. If Steve looks at him like that and tells him to jump off a cliff, Bucky will do it in a heartbeat.

Even through the faint fog of painkillers, Bucky’s nerves sing with awareness as Steve settles down beside him. He takes Bucky’s hand between his own, glinting metal enveloped completely in huge palms and long fingers.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asks, radiating protective concern.

Steve’s not wearing scent-blockers. Bucky’s blanketed in a wave of alpha pheromones.

“Do you want to fuck me?”

Steve freezes. Bucky also freezes, even as it sinks in that, yes, that was his voice which asked that question.

Fuck, did he wake up without his already pathetic excuse of a filter?

“Not quite,” Steve says, and Bucky can’t help the crushing wave of disappointment. Steve sees it, of course he does. You could see it from space. “Aw, no, Buck, not like that. I want – well, in my time, I’d say I want to court you. But the, uh, language of romance has changed a lot since then. And I was never that good at it to begin with. So, I guess it’s more that I want to date you. I also want to, well, have sex with you, but it’s not just that. More like the whole package?”

Bucky blinks. Earnest blue eyes peer down at him. He blinks again.

And he sees it, how the hopeful smile on Steve’s face fades, then turns into something bland and practiced.

“You don’t have to,” Steve hurries to say. “Buck, it’s like you said, it’s no obligation, I just wanted – anyway, it doesn’t matter–”

Steve starts to pull back, and it’s the loss of heat as his hands unwrap from around Bucky’s that he jolts back to his senses.

“I want it!” Bucky almost shouts, clutching at Steve’s hand, wincing when he forgets to check the strength of the metal limb. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I want it, Steve. All of that. The whole package. I was just…shocked.”

“Oh.”

It’s Steve’s turn to look dazed. But then his eyes brighten, his smile widens, and suddenly, it’s like looking at the sun.

He’s gorgeous, this man, and Bucky’s half-gone already, warmed down to his soul by the genuine care Steve has shown the last five says, not just for Bucky’s health but for the whole series of disasters that led them to this hospital room in the first place.

An alpha who’s beautiful, kind, strong, and brave. _He’s_ the whole damn package.

Bucky doesn’t think anyone can blame him for being too drunk on being asked out by a man like that to remember to mention, despite his earlier preoccupation, that he’s an alpha too, not an omega or even a beta.

-

Their first date – actual, proper date, not Steve coming over with ice cream while Bucky completes his convalescence at his home or having long, complicated conversations about whether or not Bucky should follow Hill to Stark Industries – is at a fancy restaurant situated on the rooftop of one of Manhattan’s many high-rises.

When Bucky tells Steve the view is nice, he’s talking more about Steve in a bespoke suit than the sprawling cityscape.

It’s still awkward as all hell. Steve never showed any indication of not being comfortable in Bucky’s cozy one-bedroom apartment, but here, surrounded by the sort of luxury Bucky’s not keen on unless work requires it, Steve’s all tense shoulders and thin smiles.

Bucky lets them both suffer patiently through two courses of dishes that taste pretty good but don’t make up for the sheer awkward energy of the table. And then he grabs Steve’s hand, plucks the fork from his fingers, and says, “You wanna blow this joint?”

Steve’s insanely blue eyes hold a terrible hope.

Still, he protests.

“But, Buck, we’re already here.”

“So we’ll pay and leave,” Bucky coaxes. “We’ll tip well, it’s fine. C’mon, Steve, let’s go to that diner near my place. Remember you said you’d marry Marcus for his pancakes alone?”

“How can I forget, you pouted at me for half an hour.”

“You chose another man’s pancakes over my stellar breakfast cereal.”

“Please, you love his pancakes more than I do.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Steve!”

Steve laughs, and the look in his eyes is so fond that it makes Bucky squirm in his seat.

They get the hell out of dodge soon after, and they do leave a hefty tip. Bucky doesn’t think it counts as guilt-tipping when they didn’t even fuck in the bathroom. He drives them to the diner, and they must make a hell of a sight, two jacked men in tailored suits hunched over a booth in the corner of a rundown diner.

As long as they don’t get recognized, it’s fine. Bucky’s suit sleeve covers his left arm to the wrist and even if left uncovered, he’s not at much risk except in the unlikely event that any of the late-night diner patrons have trawled religiously through the files Romanoff released into the internet and found the reports of the Winter Soldier’s dubiously moral exploits on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve’s much more likely to catch someone’s eye, with his goddamn jawline and goddamn everything, but he’s been growing out a beard for the last week or so. It’s eerily effective. No one expects Captain America to be a bearded hunk of beef who looks like he’ll put you over his knees and make you call him daddy.

Well, maybe Bucky’s projecting just a little.

“Sorry,” Steve says once they’ve ordered.

“What for?” Bucky asks, startled.

“The, uh, date? I wanted it to be good for you, for us. Think I went overboard and fucked it up.” He looks so apologetic, his eyes almost puppyish. “I’m really not good at this, Buck. I’m sorry.”

Bucky reaches over and takes Steve’s hands in his own again. It’s easier here, the table small enough that they can almost hold each other leaning over it.

“Do I look like I think the date’s ruined? It’s sweet that you put in the effort, Steve. That’s what matters. But I’d say this is more our style, huh?”

Steve shakes his head, but he’s smiling.

“Clearly. I keep telling myself I should be used to it, but places like that still make my skin crawl. You can the kid out of the 1940s but…”

“Can’t take 1940s out of the kid?”

“Yep. Doesn’t help that I was broke as all hell back then.”

Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand, delighted even now when Steve squeezes back. He never once flinched away from Bucky’s metal arm, never asked uncomfortably probing questions. Just treated it like a part of Bucky, like the long hair Steve liked to run his fingers through or the ass Bucky saw him surreptitiously eyeing each time he got the chance.

Bucky’s kind of hopeless for the guy already.

It’s all good after that. They talk the way they always do, an eclectic mix of work and personal life. Granted, there’s no clear delineation between the two for either of them, but it’s easier now with S.H.I.E.L.D dissolved and most of what’s left assimilated into SI alongside Hill. Bucky’s been assigned to Pepper Potts’s security detail, and despite his initial reservations about SI, he fucking loves the job.

And he gets to see Steve a lot, occasional Hydra-hunting trips across states and continents aside. It’s nice, very nice.

It’s just that with each passing day, the urge to tell Steve that Bucky’s also an alpha gets more and more intense, and Bucky smothers it with an extra helping of scent-blockers and denial. He wears it to sleep now, drenching even his apartment in the scent of chemicals.

All the same, when they’re done eating and are lingering to the point that the waitress is side-eyeing them, Bucky suggests, “Let’s go back to my place?”

Steve lights up like a fucking firework, and it’s not a surprise, but Bucky still feels warm all over.

-

“ _Steve_ ,” he gasps, fingers twisting helplessly in Steve’s hair and scrabbling down his clothed back. Steve lost his jacket somewhere between the doorway and Bucky’s kitchen table, but the shirt’s still on him, half-unbuttoned and making him look somehow more obscene than pure nakedness would.

Steve pauses with his teeth still set against Bucky’s jaw. He sucks lightly and lets go, raising his head to look into Bucky’s eyes.

He doesn’t quite remember how they got there. One moment, they were kissing by the door and then Bucky was being hoisted up on his table, Steve a solid wall between his legs.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” Steve says softly, and Bucky has to kiss him, he’ll die if he doesn’t.

Steve groans into the kiss, the sound as desperate as Bucky feels, and wastes no time licking into Bucky’s mouth, ravenous from the curl of his tongue to the press of his teeth. Bucky hikes a leg higher up Steve’s hips and tries, helplessly, to rut against him. Steve grabs that thigh and pulls Bucky closer, and he’s making a fine mess of both their dress pants, but he doesn’t give a fuck. All he can think of is Steve’s tongue sliding over his and Steve’s hard thigh pressed flush to Bucky’s clothed dick.

He knows he’s doing to come on his pants like a teenager if they keep this up, but Bucky would rather eat a live scorpion than pull away from Steve’s hungry mouth and grasping hands.

“Please,” he whines against Steve’s lips, not sure what he’s begging for, but fuck, Steve knows to give it to him. Teeth sink into Bucky’s lower lip and his hips jolt forward, cock grinding almost painfully against Steve’s thigh. Bucky tastes blood when their mouths part, and he licks it up, groaning at the taste.

Steve kisses him again, a hard clash of mouths, and then he’s nipping his way down Bucky’s jaw again, sucking hard enough to leave marks Bucky can’t hide without a generous layer of concealer. And he won’t, he’ll fucking walk into SI wearing Steve’s teeth on his skin like a brand, and _Jesus_ –

Steve’s got his hands on Bucky’s hips, forcing him to grind faster, harder, and it almost hurts, the pressure and pleasure piling on with no release, and Bucky’s mad with it, gasping wetly into the air and begging without words with each breath. Steve closes his mouth over Bucky’s hammering pulse, biting gently and sucking hard, and Bucky can feel his cock rub up against a spreading wet stain.

And then Steve’s nosing his way down and to the side, hunting for Bucky’s scent glands, and the flash of fear he feels is drowned by the sheer barrage of sensation when Steve finds them.

Bucky shudders as Steve’s chest expands with a deep breath.

Steve sets his mouth to the glands, tongue sliding over them, and he _growls_.

Bucky comes suddenly and violently, spilling into his underwear with a shocked cry. Steve makes a startled sound too, and when he raises his head from Bucky’s neck, his lips are wet, his eyes a gleaming black.

He doesn’t look away from Bucky as he reaches down between them and cups Bucky’s groin, pressing the heel of his palm against the wetness seeping into the fabric.

Bucky, still trembling, whimpers pathetically at the sensation.

“Christ, Buck,” Steve says, and he’s the one who sounds like his brain just slid out his dick. “You came.”

Bucky’s already flushed down his neck, but Steve’s words make him burn. He hides, no other word for it, ducking his head and almost slamming it into the crook of Steve’s neck.

He’s immediately assaulted by a wave of pheromones, cocooned in the sharp musk of aroused alpha.

It goes right to his spent dick and tugs cruelly at his gut. He whines, pressing into the hand Steve’s got between his legs even as it makes stars burst in his vision.

Fingers twist into his hair, and usually, Steve’s so gentle with his hair, careful and almost reverent as he sifts through the strands, but now, it’s a tight fist that yanks Bucky back up and keeps his neck arched for Steve’s sharp teeth.

“Smells like chemical,” Steve rumbles, a dangerous growl deepening his voice. “ _Reeks_.”

He bites down, gnawing a mark that makes Bucky’s spine go hot and electric with pain. His dick tries valiantly to spring back to life.

He’s kept there, neck arched and clinging to Steve, as his throat and jaw are peppered with sweet, stinging bruises. Steve laves his tongue over Bucky’s scent glands, seals his lips over them as Bucky’s instincts go haywire, and _sucks_.

Bucky shouts, shuddering in Steve’s grasp, turned on beyond measure and just as utterly spent.

Steve takes mercy on him, easing off, and he’s got to know by now that Bucky’s an alpha. The scent-blockers didn’t stand a goddamn chance against Steve’s biting determination to pull out Bucky’s scent, and the air is heavy with their mingled pheromones. But when Bucky looks at him, he only sees hunger on Steve’s face. His eyes are still dark, the blue a thin lining around luminous pupils. There’s pink on his cheeks, and his lips are red and swollen. Bucky leans in to lick at them, moaning when he tastes his own skin.

“Wanna suck you off,” he gasps against Steve’s mouth. “Steve, please, lemme–”

“Yeah, sure, twist my arm,” Steve says, and Bucky doesn’t get it, why Steve’s the one who looks so awed.

Bucky slides off the table, Steve stepping back obligingly, and drops to his knees. It puts his face right on level with the impressive bulge tenting Steve’s pants. They’re already ruined, some of Bucky’s come having seeped into it, and Bucky doesn’t waste time on finesse, just yanks it down, underwear and all.

And there it is, America’s cock, and god, what a fucking sight.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

Steve snorts, a startled, graceless sound. When Bucky looks up, Steve’s got this expression that seems torn between amusement and pure need.

“Like what you see?”

“Steve, you’re gonna have to pry me off your dick with a crowbar.”

This time, Steve’s laugh ends on a choked groan as Bucky makes good on his word and sucks him down.

It’s – a lot.

Steve’s got the kind of alpha dick Bucky’s honestly never seen outside of dubiously realistic porn, and sure, it makes sense since whatever the serum did to his body was unlikely to leave his cock untouched, but it’s still intimidating for the poor, thirsty souls who want it crammed down their throat.

Bucky gags a little and eases off, wiping his mouth.

“Steve, I gotta ask, what did the serum do down here?”

It’s satisfying as all hell to see Steve visibly struggle to gather his scattered brain cells and formulate a response.

“Added a bit of everything,” he says, voice gaining that odd rumble again. “Length, girth. Knot’s a bit more, uh…more. Problem?”

“I’m having a religious experience,” Bucky tells him completely seriously. “Fuck my face.”

“Christ, Buc – shit!”

Bucky gags again when the head hits the back of his throat. He clings with both hands to Steve’s hips and shoves himself forward, tears clouding his vision as his body struggles against the intrusion. He still can’t take all of it, but goddamn does he try.

It's a relief when Steve fists a hand in his hair, cursing vehemently under his breath. He doesn’t actually fuck Bucky’s face, just holds on tight while Bucky tries to do it for him. It’s good, though, the sting on his scalp and relentless pressure.

Bucky pulls back until Steve’s just barely in his mouth, and blinks up at him. Bucky must look a mess with his face a splotchy red and drool wetting his chin, but Steve is staring down like he’s watching a miracle be birthed. Bucky suckles at the head of the cock, light and lazy, a tease but also a challenge. Steve rises it to meet it, growl on his lips and fingers cruelly tight in Bucky’s hair.

It’s easier, Bucky finds, to take Steve’s cock deep into his throat when he’s being forced down and made to choke on it. Easier to close his eyes and lose himself to the burn in his lungs and behind his eyes.

Steve fucks his mouth with carefully controlled savagery. Bucky drools and gags and works his tongue frantically over what he can, whole body throbbing in time to Steve’s ragged breaths. He can tell when Steve’s about to come, feel it in his broken rhythm and the harsh curses spilling from his lips.

The first burst of it lands hot and bitter on Bucky’s tongue, and he’s swallowing on instinct even as Steve pulls out, covering Bucky’s chin and throat with his release. Bucky licks it off his lips and just sits there, stunned, skin burning where Steve’s come branded him.

But Steve tugs at his hair, a command and not a suggestion, and Bucky stumbles to his feet, grateful for Steve’s solid body to collapse into. Steve doesn’t ease his grip on Bucky’s hair when they kiss and not when he trails that open, hungry mouth down Bucky’s throat to lap up the mess he made. Bucky arches his neck, baring everything for Steve’s lips, keening through his teeth as that hot tongue licks wide, wet stripes along his skin and torments the tingling flesh with sharp nips over the bruises already there.

He whines when Steve presses his mouth over the scent glands on one side, not biting or licking, just breathing over the sensitive pores. He presses a soft, slightly wet kiss there that turns Bucky’s spine to liquid. Bucky trembles for him, helpless not to imagine the pain of teeth sinking into his glands, drawing blood and leaving him with a scar he’ll wear forever with pride.

And god, a first date’s a hell of a time to think about _bonding_ , but Bucky’s always wanted it, never cared that the mental path wasn’t open to him when he could have mingled scents and a set of teeth that would claim him as someone’s. Becca called him a hopeless romantic.

S.H.I.E.L.D ate up a lot of the good things in his life, but Bucky’s still a hopeless romantic, and Steve?

Steve makes his heart sing.

They make it to the couch, somehow. Bucky’s not sure why didn’t do that to begin with instead of fucking on the kitchen table like a pair of goddamn heathens, but it’s not like he can really make himself regret it. Hell, he still can’t feel all his limbs, and arousal is a low, pleasant thrum through his whole being despite the mind-blowing orgasm he just had. It’s not the best sex he’s ever had because Bucky goes fucking wild when he’s got something all pressed up inside him, but Steve’s objectively the best partner he’s had.

It's not a surprise; their little make-out sessions before gave Bucky a damn good idea what kind of lover Steve would be – sweet, savage, attentive, and demanding. Perfect, at least for Bucky.

And he’s terrified of losing him.

Bucky gets to have a solid fifteen minutes to just flop on top of Steve on the couch and bask in the afterglow before he stops being able to ignore the looming, potentially relationship-ending elephant in the room.

Sure, Steve didn’t seem to mind Bucky’s designation when he had his cock in Bucky’s mouth, but that’s more or less a general trend among dick-owners, alphas especially.

Steve’s a good man though, the kind to carry a man out of a collapsing helicarrier instead of just saving his own damn skin.

“So,” Bucky starts, the word almost a sigh, “I’m an alpha.”

Under him, Steve finally stirs. Bucky raises his head off Steve’s chest and looks at his face. Honestly, he looks like he’s still a few minutes away from processing language and damn if that doesn’t make Bucky puff up with pride.

After a beat, Steve says, “Yes?”

Bucky can’t quite pinpoint what clues him in – maybe it’s the utter lack of surprise on Steve’s face, maybe it’s how confused he sounds to hear Bucky state it so somberly.

“You knew.”

“Bucky,” Steve says slowly, “After what we just did, the entire apartment reeks of alpha pheromones. I’d have to be scent-blind not to know.”

“No, I mean – you knew before we had sex.”

Steve frowns, the last of the sex-haze clearing from his eyes. He sits up, nudging Bucky ever so gently off him. They manage not to fall off the couch as they scramble upright and sit facing each other. Bucky draws some comfort from how Steve scoots close so their thighs are touching and lays a hand on Bucky’s knee.

“I knew the moment we met. That day, on the Insight helicarrier. Do you think I didn’t?”

Bucky ducks his head.

“I, uh, assumed you assumed I’m an omega? I’ve been wearing pretty hardcore blockers the entire time we’ve known each other.”

He doesn’t mention how he amped up the usage after meeting Steve, all to guiltily preserve a secret that was never bound to last and now turns to not have been a secret at all.

“Aw, Buck.” Steve sounds so fucking _gentle_ when he calls Bucky that. “The serum enhanced all my senses. Scent sensitivity included. Blockers, no matter how strong, can’t stop me from knowing anyone’s designation.”

“Oh.” Bucky sucks in a deep breath and raises his eyes to Steve’s. “All this time?”

Steve kisses him. Bucky gasps into it, startled at first, and then he melts, relief sweeping through his limbs.

“Sweetheart, I know who you are, what you are,” Steve says, mouth lingering close to Bucky’s, each word an intimate whisper. “I never wanted anything else.”

Bucky shudders.

“I thought – I’m sorry, I hate it when people do it to me, but I still thought – it’s just – Howard Stark, you know? It’s not an excuse. Plenty of people like more than one d-sig. S’just that you kept treating me, uh, well, not the way people usually treat an alpha lover. And I didn’t know how to tell you I’m not an omega or even a beta.”

“I treated you the only way I know how to treat a, uh, lover. But I’m – well, I told you, I’m not very good at this. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable–”

“You didn’t,” Bucky cuts in almost frantically. “I liked it, Steve, you make me feel – god, you don’t know. _Treasured_. It was the d-sig part that fucked me up. Felt like I was lying.”

“You weren’t,” Steve responds immediately. “I can see why you felt that way, but it was never like that for me. And Buck, I do like both. But Howard and I were never together. Peggy and I were. She was an alpha too and – it wasn’t allowed, those days, an alpha with another alpha. It was his idea to pretend. Nothing outrageous and no outright lies. But with the eyes on both of us, spending some time together and hugging now and then was enough. Pegs and I could fly under the radar.”

Bucky can’t quite find his tongue. It’s not every day you find out that your boyfriend used to date the motherfucking founder of S.H.I.E.L.D.

And sure, said boyfriend rightfully burned S.H.I.E.L.D to the ground, but no one who spent even half an hour reading up on Director Margaret Carter would think that she wouldn’t have done the same in his place.

“Wow,” he says finally. “I’m. Wow. Holy shit.”

“Buck?”

Bucky shakes his head and smiles, waving off Steve’s concern.

“Don’t mind me, just had my mind blown. That’s – god, Steve, that’s a hell of a thing.” And then he remembers– “Director Carter is still alive.”

Steve’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Yeah, I see her sometimes. She doesn’t always recognize me. Or remember my prior visits when she does. Still a spry old lady though.”

Bucky’s heart breaks a little. He reaches out, hesitant, but Steve doesn’t shy away from the hug Bucky draws him into.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s neck. “I’ve made peace with it. She had a good life, you know? Funniest part is, when I saw her the first time, I asked her to marry me. This sweet old lady who’s got kids and grandkids and a whole damn life I was absent for.”

“Jesus. That’s not funny at all, Steve.”

Steve huffs softly.

“Yeah. Guess not. I was just reeling from waking at all. Clutching at the first familiar thing. Not thinking. Forgot it’s been seventy years for her, not a handful of weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky repeats, burying his face in Steve’s hair.

Steve shudders and shuffles closer, pressing Bucky to the arm of the couch as they half-lie, half-hug on the couch. It’s not the most comfortable position, but Bucky’s been thinking for a while now that he’d walk barefoot over coals for this man.

“Sorry,” Steve says after a long time.

“What for?”

Steve pulls back, and his smile’s faint but genuine.

“Pretty sure it’s bad dating etiquette to bring up your old lovers after our first time together.”

“I mean, I did ask.” Bucky darts in for a quick kiss. “And it’s good. Knowing you like me as I am. That you’re as queer as I am. Really good, Steve.”

Steve gives him that sweet, sunshine smile.

“Stay the night,” Bucky blurts out breathlessly. “Stay with me.”

“Sweetheart, I’d love to.”

-

In the morning, Bucky emerges from the bedroom in his work suit and doesn’t quite understand what’s happening when he finds himself pinned to a wall within seconds.

But Steve’s got those fingers so tight and sweet in his hair, and Bucky goes limp, panting already. He expects teeth and tongue, his bruised neck already throbbing in anticipation, but what he gets is Steve rubbing his face and neck all over Bucky’s, _drenching_ him in alpha pheromones.

Everyone would know, Bucky realizes with a start. It punches a moan out of his chest and makes Steve growl in answer. All anyone would have to do is take one whiff of Bucky and they’d know he’s covered in a scent not his own, that an alpha has staked a claim on him with possessive fervor.

Bucky’s knees buckle, but Steve holds him up, and Bucky feels as secure and treasured as he did last night when he fell asleep tangled in Steve’s limbs.

Steve pulls back once he’s satisfied, mouth curled into a smile that’s more hungry than pleasant.

“Better,” he says in that rumbling voice of his.

“You goddamn animal,” Bucky rasps, throwing himself into a kiss.

“Don’t even front, Barnes,” Steve says in between biting kisses. “Like you don’t like it. As if I can’t feel how fuckin’ sweet you get when I rough you up some. How sweet you are _now_.”

Bucky keens and tries, with more desperation than finesse, to climb on Steve. He’s pried off and pressed to the wall, Steve pulling well and truly away with one last kiss.

“You got work, Buck. And I got a jet to catch.”

Bucky huffs but tries to keep the worry off his tone when he says, “Be careful. Fuck up some Nazis for me.”

“Always, sweetheart.” Steve smiles and something about it says that maybe Bucky didn’t hide his worry all that well. “I’ll be fine. You take care, alright?”

It’s not easy to watch Steve leave, but he can take care of himself. And well, it’s not like he’s taking on Hydra alone. He’s got Sam and Natasha and, occasionally, the other Avengers. Bucky fixes the hair Steve messed up and heads to his car, a curious blend of aroused and agitated.

Once he’s inside, Steve’s scent seems to fill the whole car.

He drives to work with a half-chub and tries not to grin too much when everyone from Pepper to the barista on the 17th floor café shoots him wide, knowing looks.

-

He opens the door and gets a faceful of yellow tulips.

“Uh.”

Steve emerges from behind the bouquet, smiling more sweetly than you’d expect from a six-foot-something giant of an alpha. Bucky adores him terribly.

“You’re taking the courting thing real seriously, huh?” Bucky asks, and he means it to be teasing but it comes out unspeakably soft.

“You said you liked it,” Steve reminds him, stepping inside and closing the door.

“I do. S’sweet. Ain’t gonna turn down a guy who loves on me the way you do.”

Steve’s cheeks turn red, but there’s a happy, proud glint in his eye.

“Good,” he says roughly, leaning in to kiss Bucky, the flowers trapped between their torsos.

Bucky pulls back and rescues the tulips. He tries to sneak in a sniff but by the smile on Steve’s face, he didn’t really succeed in being subtle. Steve trails behind him as Bucky tries to find a vase for the flowers. All he finds is an ugly grey vase he can’t remember buying, and it doesn’t do the tulips any favors, but they’re too pretty to be overshadowed by a lackluster vessel.

Steve seems to agree, pressing up behind Bucky and resting his chin on Bucky’s head.

“You’re early,” Bucky says, relaxing into Steve’s warm hold. “Like, half a day early.”

“I come bearing food and gifts,” Steve says, as if that’s Bucky’s concern here. Bucky does take the plastic bag and the velvet box Steve hands him. The latter’s the confusing bit. The plan was that Steve would bring food to Bucky’s place, and then they’d go to the movie. The flowers, fine, Steve’s got an attachment to them, 40s alpha that he is.

But why the fuck is he giving Bucky what looks like a necklace box?

“I, uh, don’t really wear jewelry,” he tells Steve, twisting around.

“I know. It’s not jewelry.”

Bucky would probe further, but then Steve’s mouth is on his and he’s got better concerns. It’s really not fair that he can distract Bucky so thoroughly by just kissing him, but Bucky figures Steve’s no better with the way he looks dazed and ready to pin Bucky to the closest flat surface by the time they part.

“We should eat,” Bucky mumbles against Steve’s lips. “Or you can just eat me, I don’t mind.”

Steve makes a wounded noise.

“Neither would I, trust me. But nope. No getting distracted. We got a date.”

“You’re literal hours early.”

Steve just grins at him.

It’s not the height of romance, eating breakfast on Bucky’s kitchen table that just barely fits the two of them and the mountain of food required to feed Steve adequately. But as far as Bucky’s concerned, it’s the best thing in the world to see Steve be so comfortable in his home.

He's happily basking in the warmth of Steve’s company and enjoying the great food when Steve opens his mouth and makes him choke.

“Will you spend my rut with me?”

Bucky coughs until his throat burns, and the wide-eyed horror on Steve’s face would be hilarious in a situation that didn’t involve Bucky almost dying.

Alright, that’s an exaggeration. But _still_.

“Christ, Rogers,” Bucky gasps at a shame-faced Steve. “Way to spring that on a guy.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, and he does sound genuinely apologetic.

That’s about when the full force of what he actually said hits Bucky.

“Wait, what?”

Steve squares, suddenly every bit a soldier. Does that make Bucky his war?

“Will you spend my rut with me?” Steve smiles but doesn’t manage to hide its nervous edges. “It’s in a couple of weeks. I understand if you said no. We’ve only been dating a few months.”

“I’m – fuck, you have ruts? You’re not on suppressants?”

Steve looks taken aback.

“No? They can’t even find painkillers strong enough to work on me. Even the strongest suppressant on the market, the sort with all those side effects you could write horror stories about – they’re useless. Serum just eats ‘em up.”

“Oh,” Bucky breathes, a little stunned. “Damn, that’s rough. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t actually mind,” Steve says, head tilted curiously. “I assume you do take them?”

“Started at twenty and never looked back,” Bucky says honestly.

Steve nods understandingly.

“Before the serum, I was too sick to survive ruts. Had to take suppressants, there was no other choice. And after, it felt like my body was catching up on all those missed years.”

Bucky winces, trying to imagine that.

“Ouch.”

“It wasn’t so bad.” Steve’s smile is wistful and twists up Bucky’s gut. “They’re definitely easier to handle now that I’m not in a warzone though. So, how about it, Buck? You really can say no. I won’t hold it against you.”

“Promise?”

Steve reaches across the table to take Bucky’s hand. His fingers are so warm and so big.

“Promise, sweetheart. I’m in this for you. I can spend my ruts alone, it’s no big deal.”

“Kinda is,” Bucky says, chuckling. “Good thing you won’t have to.”

“I don’t?”

“I’m saying yes. I’ll warn you though. I’m no omega. Or in possession of any parts that will make a quick fuck easy.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Steve says drily. His whole countenance softens the next moment. “We’ll work it out, Buck. And I’ve told you. I want you as you are. My pretty alpha.”

Bucky blushes.

It’s a little horrifying. The butterflies making a ruckus in his stomach don’t seem to really care.

-

Steve leaves after breakfast despite Bucky incessant protests and best attempts at transforming into a barnacle. It’s kind of ridiculous, how easily those huge hands can pry Bucky off Steve and hold him away.

It’s fucking sexy.

“This is how I’ll die,” Bucky says, mournfully staring at his half-hard dick. “Bucky Barnes, 1987 to 2014. Cause of death – blue balls.”

“So fuckin’ dramatic,” Steve says, inching unsubtly out the door.

Bucky pouts at him.

“I’ll be back in the evening,” Steve tells him, unmoved. “Be ready. Oh, and Buck?”

Despite making a show of sulking, Bucky still can’t help perking up at that tone of voice.

“Yeah?”

Steve smiles angelically.

“Wear my gift. The smaller one.”

Bucky stares blankly as Steve rides off. It’s a hell of a sight though, those thick thighs straddling Steve’s likely-to-be-thrown-at-a-Quinjet-one-day Harley. Bucky’s aching dick distracts him too much to think about Steve’s parting words until he’s long gone.

When he does, Bucky books it to the kitchen where the velvet box lies innocently on a counter. He’s got no clue what it will be, this ‘smaller one’ he’s supposed to wear. Steve said it’s not jewelry so what else, lingerie?

The answer stares at him from a bed of soft white satin.

Two plugs, curved and made of polished steel. The smaller one isn’t really that small. The bigger one looks like it’ll break something. The base of each one is set with bright red heart-shaped crystals that gleam tauntingly at Bucky.

“ _Oh_ , you motherfucker.”

-

“You wearing my gift, Buck?”

A part of Bucky is honestly shocked that it took Steve so long to ask. Bucky’s been expecting the question since Steve picked him up at his place. But he just kissed Bucky and led him out to the car, and even when Bucky spent the entire ride squirming like – well, like he had a fucking butt plug in him, Steve didn’t say a single word.

Fucking figures that he’d ask now, the evil bastard.

“I hate you,” Bucky hisses, eyes darting around warily.

Steve got them corner seats in the back row. The cinema’s pretty full but the three seats to the left of Steve remain conspicuously empty, and Bucky’s got the sinking suspicion that Steve bought them too, just to get them this little bubble of privacy.

It’s not the kind of thing anyone would expect Captain goddamn America to do, but Bucky has recently come to terms with the realization that Steve Rogers is not only a little shit but a kinky little shit.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

And then the bastard puts his hand on Bucky’s knee and – and squeezes.

Bucky nearly bites through his lips stifling a moan.

On the screen, the trailers are almost done, the movie about to begin.

“I hope you’ll enjoy this,” Steve says cheerfully. “You’ve been planning to see this movie, right, Buck?”

“You thrice-damned asshat,” Bucky mutters under his breath, more than loud enough for Steve to hear. “I’m gonna goddamn murder you.”

Steve squeezes his thigh again, hard enough to bruise even through the denim, and Bucky can’t help clench up all over. Bad idea, his ass reminds him sharply. He squirms again, trying to find a comfortable position and knowing full well that it’s impossible.

The movie starts, and Steve’s hand creeps higher, and all Bucky can see is a blur of colors.

“Steve,” he gasps, can’t help it.

The person in front of him turns back, shooting Bucky a brief, quelling glance.

Steve leans in and his lips brush Bucky’s ear when he says, “Be quiet, honey.”

Bucky screws his eyes shut, trying to breathe deeply through his nose while Steve’s hand inches higher up his leg at a torturously slow pace, fingers tracing the inseam. When that hand finally comes to rest on the crook of Bucky’s thigh, close enough to brush the embarrassing bulge at his groin, it’s not words that Bucky uses to beg.

He throws his head back, bares his throat, and nudges his hips against Steve’s touch.

Steve hisses through his teeth.

Bucky bites his lip bloody when Steve finally cups him through his jeans. He shifts, jerking up into the teasing pressure, and almost fucking shouts when that makes the plug shift and press into a spot that sends lightning through his veins.

Steve acknowledges nothing, just leaves his hand resting idly over Bucky’s aching cock.

Bucky’s shirt is already soaked through with sweat, and he feels like a dirty mess, plugged up and helplessly hard under Steve’s featherlight touch. He can’t beg, ain’t allowed the words for it, but fuck, he’ll drop to his knees right here and suck Steve down if that’ll earn him some kind of release.

He whines very softly. The person in the front seat doesn’t even seem to hear him past the senseless dialogue booming in the room. But Steve does.

It’s zero to sixty in a heartbeat. Light pressure one moment and a painful, brutal squeeze the next. Bucky shoves his right fist in his mouth and whimpers into it.

“Quiet,” Steve repeats, and it’s all Bucky can do to nod, frantic and desperate, whole body _burning_.

Steve eases up until his hand’s just there again, curved almost protectively over Bucky’s clothed cock. Bucky sits stock still but can’t help clenching around the plug that’s got him stuffed full.

He survives until the intermission.

“Please,” he begs the moment the screen goes dark, voice so hushed his throat aches with it. “Steve, please, take me home, fuck me, give me, please, _please_.”

Steve makes a soft, considering sound.

“You don’t want to finish the movie?”

“Please.”

Bucky’s voice breaks on the last syllable. He can’t see Steve’s face, but Bucky can feel his reaction in how his hand tightens its grip on Bucky’s crotch, a momentary twitch that says enough.

“Alright,” Steve says, voice very, very quiet. “Let’s go home.”

-

Bucky tries to jump Steve the moment they’re in the apartment and isn’t even surprised when he’s caught by the jaw and yanked into a violent kiss that gets his lips bleeding again.

“Fuck,” Steve curses. He sucks at Bucky’s lip, tonguing the blood and making it sting. “Christ, the things you do to me.”

Bucky laughs, incredulous, because he’s the one with a toy up his ass and a gut full of roiling lava.

Steve fists a hand in his hair and gives him a good shake.

“Look at me.”

Bucky looks at him, drowns in him.

“God,” Steve breathes. “Bucky.”

“Please,” Bucky whines.

Steve manhandles him to bed. They slam into a few walls on the way, and Bucky hears a crash when they pass the bookshelf, but he honestly doesn’t care about one goddamn thing except getting naked and fucked stupid. The air’s thick with pheromones, Steve’s scent enveloping Bucky, driving him fucking crazy.

It feels like forever before he’s finally in bed, and he doesn’t remember losing his shirt, but he must have because he’s bare-chested, the whole of his torso bared to Steve’s hot, open mouth. Bucky’s used to being marked up over and over and over, Steve barely giving the old ones time to fade before sucking fresh bruises on him. It’s the neck that he favors, and Bucky knows it’s got to do with the scent and the sheer intimacy of an alpha baring his neck for another. It still hits him in the gut like a sledgehammer each time Steve mouths at his scent glands or gnaws burning bruises over his pulse.

But he hasn’t got the patience for it _now_ , with his cock threatening to poke a goddamn hole through his briefs and his ass throbbing hot around the plug.

He winds his fingers tightly into Steve’s hair and tugs, but all he gets is a piercing blue stare and teeth closing none too gently over his nipple. Steve bites down, sending a bolt of agonized pleasure through Bucky.

“Steve, _please_ ,” Bucky sobs, feeling the telltale burn of tears in his eyes.

Steve’s eyes darken.

It’s all a blur; Bucky’s flipped over like he weighs no more than a feather and his jeans are yanked off him, something tearing. It fucks him up, how strong Steve is, how he wields that strength with such exacting care and an equal amount of brutality.

Bucky wants it all, wants Steve to be rough and violent, wants him to make Bucky cry.

“Jesus Christ, Buck,” Steve gasps. “You want that, honey? You’d look so pretty when you cry.”

Bucky’s face burns at the realization that he said all that out loud. Steve bears down on Bucky with his whole weight, pinning him flat to the bed. His dick aches where it’s trapped between his body and the mattress, but it’s the shifting of the plug inside him that makes Bucky cry out.

Steve ruts against him, and he’s still dressed, but Bucky can distinctly feel the bulge of his hard cock. Steve grinds against the swell of Bucky’s ass, a mimicry of what Bucky aches for.

“Steve,” he whimpers, a plea packed into that one syllable.

“I got you, sweetheart.”

Steve says that and then pulls back, spreading Bucky’s legs to settle between them. Huge hands land on his ass, spreading the cheeks wide. He feels so exposed, hole clenching helplessly around the plug with the full knowledge that Steve’s watching. Bucky imagines it, what it looks like down there, the crystalline red heart nestled between his cheeks and winking up at Steve. He whines and tries to shift away, but Steve’s got him in a merciless grip.

“Prettier than any picture,” Steve murmurs, and the soft praise goes right to Bucky’s dick.

A moan is punched out of him the next second, when Steve’s thumb traces the stretch of Bucky’s hole around the plug. It’s sensitive, more of a sting than an ache, and then it’s Steve’s tongue following the path of his thumb, licking around the toy, and Bucky’s mouth falls soundlessly open. He doesn’t even have the air to scream.

There’s no warning. Just a harsh tug and the toy popping out of Bucky’s ass. Bucky’s elbows buckle, and his torso falls flat on the mattress, leaving his ass raised high in the air. Steve makes an appreciative noise, and Bucky responds with something soft and pathetic.

“Where’s the other one?”

It takes a few seconds for Bucky to even figure out what Steve’s talking about. And that’s apparently a few seconds too long for Steve’s taste because there’s a thumb inside him, dry but sliding in easily with how loose Bucky is from the plug.

“Bucky,” Steve says very softly, “answer me.”

“Ni-nightstand,” Bucky forces out. “Top drawer.”

Steve pats him consolingly on the ass and pulls his thumb out. Bucky whines, clenching hard around thin air. He turns his head to the side to watch Steve retrieve the plug. He lost his shirt sometime, but he’s got a tank top and jeans on, and Bucky almost goes cross-eyed drinking in the sight. Then, Steve finds what he was looking for and brandishes it at Bucky with a happy little smile.

The plug is fucking huge, but Steve’s hand still dwarfs it.

Bucky doesn’t know whether the sudden tremble in his bones is born of dread or anticipation.

Steve must see it because he leans down, one knee on the bed, and kisses Bucky very gently. It’s an awkward angle, but the touch of those lips still warms Bucky down to his soul.

“You ever want me to stop, you tell me, alright, Buck?”

Bucky swallows.

“I say red, you stop,” he tells Steve, pleased to find that his voice is faint but firm. “Otherwise, you keep fucking going.”

The expression on Steve’s face tears a full-body shudder out of Bucky. This time, the kiss is harder, and Steve’s teeth catch Bucky on the edge of his jaw, a flash of pain that makes him ache for more.

“Understood,” Steve murmurs, voice dark and pleased.

And then he’s gone from Bucky’s sight. He settles between Bucky’s legs again, hands back on his ass like he just can’t stay away. Bucky pushes into that touch, wriggling in a way he hopes is enticing and not ridiculous. Judging by Steve’s breathless cursing, he got the intended effect either way.

Cold steel kisses his rim, and Bucky knows instantly that it’s not the smaller one.

“Steve!”

“Easy, sweetheart,” Steve says, laughter in his voice. It’s not a very nice sound and lights Bucky up like a fucking Christmas tree. “Not just gonna push the whole thing in you. Kinda want to though. See how loud you scream.”

“Jesus,” Bucky says, shuddering, mind flashing helplessly through that scenario.

The plug goes away, and there are familiar slick sounds. Bucky tries to look over his shoulder, straining his neck to watch Steve slick his fingers up with lube that’s certainly not Bucky’s. He must have bought it with him, carried it in a pocket while he fondled Bucky in the cinema and watched him squirm.

He squirms again at the thought, but Steve steadies him with a large hand around his hip, holding Bucky still for the wet probe of his other hand.

Steve pushes two inside, just like that, and it’s easy enough with him open from having the plug in so long, but Steve’s fingers reach deeper inside than the cool metal did. Bucky cries out, instinctively arching away only to be held in place and filled. Steve starts thrusting, working his fingers in and out of Bucky, the tips hooked cruelly to catch at his rim. He takes all of three seconds to drive Bucky wild.

He writhes, arching away and pushing back into Steve’s fingers, but there’s only so much he can move with Steve holding so tight, inside and out.

When Steve speaks, light and conversational, the words take a long time to actually register in Bucky’s brain.

“Thought this would make it easier for you to handle my rut. You been knotted before, Buck?”

“Wha – what?”

Steve repeats himself slowly, and Bucky would appreciate the fucking consideration if the words weren’t accompanied by a finger teasing his prostate. He clenches his teeth, huffing gracelessly through his nose, but doesn’t make a damn sound until he manages to shape his tongue to form an answer.

“Once. High school senior year. My first girlfriend asked me to spend her rut with her.”

“Yeah? That’s sweet. You liked it?”

This time, Bucky’s silence is only half because of Steve’s fingers in his ass.

“Uh, not really? We had no idea what we were doing. Was her first rut, had to go off suppressants because of some medical thing. It just…hurt a lot. And not in the fun way.”

Steve makes a faint noise. The angle of his fingers changes, and the next few thrusts make Bucky see stars, and god, fuck, _yes_ , point taken. A third finger nudges up against him, stroking wetly along the rim and threatening to press in.

“And you ever knotted someone?”

“Steve,” Bucky whines, trying to get that third finger inside. Steve continues to lightly trace the rim, his silence expectant. “Fucking asshole, _yes_ , I have. Couple times in college.”

“You liked that?”

“It was a tight hole on my knot, ‘course I fuckin’ liked it, but I don’t like ruts, hate being so damn–”

He cuts off, growling frustratedly. Steve smooths a hand along his flank and his finger finally sliding into Bucky feels like reward and encouragement both. It’s a hell of a stretch, Steve’s fingers as big as everything else about him, and Bucky lets the burn of it wash over him as he rides the length of them.

“So damn–?” Steve prompts, stroking along Bucky’s prostate like he doesn’t know full well what that does to Bucky’s ability to think.

“Desperate,” Bucky grunts. “Out of control, no thought but to get my dick wet. Hate it.”

Steve kisses up along his thigh, teeth nipping gently at Bucky’s ass and mouth opening to breathe hotly at his crack. Bucky whines, ass tightening around Steve’s fingers, trying to get them even deeper.

“’Course, sweetheart. You need someone to take care of you, don’t you?”

Steve twists his fingers to emphasize his words, and Bucky’s cock jumps.

“Steve!”

“Not just that you’re out of control,” Steve continues, calm like he hasn’t got three fingers screwing deep into Bucky. “Need someone to keep you check, hold you when you let loose. Ain’t that it, Buck?”

Bucky shakes his head, eyes rolling back. Sparks burst along the length of his spine.

“Oh? Am I wrong?”

Bucky shakes his head again, frantic. He’s whining and writhing, a hot, clenching mess around Steve’s fingers.

“Knew it,” Steve says, soft and smug. “Knew it when I kissed you first, sweetheart. How good you’d take it, how you’d let me open you wide and use you right up.”

“Steve, Steve, god, please, Steve–”

“Gonna fuck you so good, Buck,” Steve promises him, dark and sure. His fingers twist inside Bucky, crooking and tugging, stretching out his hole and making him _burn_. “Make you scream on my knot.”

Steve yanks his fingers out, all at once and cruel, and Bucky comes all over himself with a shocked scream.

He’s shuddering through the aftershocks, hole clenching around the gaping emptiness, when the Steve starts to push the plug in.

“Steve, no, wait–”

Nothing, no mercy, just more of that cold, relentless pressure, forcing Bucky wider than even Steve’s fingers. He claws at the sheets, cock limp and hurting, every cell in his body oversensitive. Steve doesn’t stop, not even when Bucky’s sobbing around the widest part of the plug.

“Won’t fit,” Bucky whines, the sheet tearing under metal fingers. “Please, Steve, don’t–”

Steve’s hand isn’t gently when it winds Bucky’s hair around a fist and pulls his head back, forcing him to arch his throat and gasp through an open mouth.

“Now, that’s quitter talk, Barnes.” Steve pulls his hair back more, and Bucky has no choice but to go with it, panting wetly. “And you ain’t no quitter.”

Steve keeps him there, throat bared and scalp burning, as he resumes pushing the plug into Bucky. He sobs, loud and ragged, tears streaming down his hot face. His hole throbs, spreading wider and wider around the toy, but Steve’s right, he ain’t no quitter, and he takes it, every inch of it.

It's so fucking huge, filling him up to the point of pain, and Bucky knows full well that Steve’s dick is bigger. He’s had it in his mouth, his hands, he knows the length and girth of that goddamn monster.

His moan’s a soft, broken thing.

“Look at you,” Steve croons, sounding both awed and _hungry_. The hand that pushed the plug in pulls one cheek to the side, baring Bucky’s stuffed hole for a better view. “Wish you could see this, Buck.”

A finger taps the red-heart base, and it’s light, but Bucky’s whole body jolts as if electrocuted. He’s helpless to do anything but close his eyes and pant, chin wet with drool.

Steve lets go of his hair, and Bucky collapses gratefully.

His limbs feel like cooked spaghetti when Steve rearranges him, wrangling him over to his back. It makes the plug shift, Bucky _breathing_ makes the plug shift, and he runs out of air to cry out all too soon.

His dick’s a resilient fucker though, half-hard again already. One look shows him that Steve hasn’t missed that, lust-dark eyes narrowed intently on Bucky’s groin.

Bucky’s prepared for the touch, but Steve’s fingers wrapping around the base still pulls a punched-out groan out of him. Steve just strokes him idly, once then twice, smiling when Bucky fills up dizzyingly fast in his grip.

“Think you can handle my mouth on you, baby?”

A high-pitched keen slips out of him.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Steve says lightly. “I wasn’t asking.”

Once he’s found and reassembled his scattered brain cells, Bucky’s going to spend a good hour just marveling over how he found a man, a goddamn superhero, who can give him all he wants and more, read him so well and play him like a fucking violin.

But that’s for Future Bucky. Now, he’s got his hands full with keeping his brain from leaking out his ears as Steve bends and aggressively nuzzles the scent glands at the crook of Bucky’s thighs.

“Love your scent, sweetheart,” Steve says, just loud enough to register in Bucky’s dazed senses. “S’like it was made for me, the whole of you.”

“Yes,” Bucky agrees, and god, he sounds like a wreck. “Yes, yours, everything, Steve.”

The look Steve gives him is soft and tender, and it goes right to Bucky’s poor, overworked heart.

“Mine,” Steve says gently, and then he bites down hard over the glands.

Bucky cries out, shuddering wildly. His cock jumps, achingly hard and wet at the tip. Steve sucks his claim on the scent glands as Bucky moans and squirms under his teeth, pleasure and pain mingling into the most exquisite agony.

Steve sweetly works his way to Bucky’s dick, sealing his mouth, drenched in pheromones, over the head. Bucky shouts, fingers tearing at the sheets, and he rips them to shreds when Steve starts to suck.

And then Steve’s fingers are clutching the base of the plug and _pulling it out_ and–

Bucky sees white.

Steve does it again and again, breaking Bucky open on the plug and sucking hard on his dick. It’s a barrage of pleasure and pressure, the tight stretch of his walls around the plug and the throb of his cockhead in Steve’s wet mouth. Bucky writhes like a madman, fucking up into Steve’s mouth and down into the plug, arching away from the toy and Steve’s slick heat. Steve lets him but doesn’t let go of him, mouth and fingers chasing Bucky with scorching suction and relentless thrusts. He cries and keens and fucking sobs, tears tracking heat down his cheeks, but Steve’s merciless, plying Bucky with more pleasure than he can handle.

It hurts when he comes, and he shudders violently through it, spilling down Steve’s throat. Steve drinks every drop, moaning around Bucky’s dick, the sound drowned out by the scream torn out of Bucky when the plug presses into his oversensitive prostate.

Steve backs off before Bucky can find the breath to beg him to. He’s careful when he eases the toy out of Bucky, but it still stings, the tug of it at his rim. The hollow feeling afterward is worse, like Bucky’s ass doesn’t quite know what to do with the sudden _lack_.

Steve climbs up the bed to press the sweetest of kisses to Bucky’s lips.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Did so good for me. You alright?”

Bucky laughs, a breathless sound. He kisses Steve as best as he can while his whole body feels airy and boneless. It’s a lingering press of warm, parted lips, the simple sharing of air. With each breath, Bucky’s smothered in a rich wave of their mingled scents. It’s heady and makes his heart beat double time.

When he touches Steve, sliding his hands up his chest, he finds Steve’s heart also threatening to tear right out of his chest.

Bucky blinks, and the telltale flush on Steve’s face and down his neck comes into focus. He’s distracted the next moment when Steve leans down to lick at his cheeks, lapping up Bucky’s dried tears.

“Told you I’d make you cry,” he says, and Bucky shivers pleasantly. He’s fucked out and almost numb with it, but he knows he’d let Steve do anything he wanted to Bucky – fuck him, hurt him, make him cry over and over and over.

Steve makes a strangled sound, and Bucky can feel it, the way his hips jerk.

“You didn’t come,” Bucky manages to say. “Want you to.”

Steve lets out a shaky exhale.

“You can fuck me,” Bucky says.

“I’d break you, honey,” Steve says, and there’s something hungry in his voice, his eyes. “Just lie back. Let me come on that pretty face. That good?”

Bucky nods, mesmerized by Steve’s fingers working his fly open. His dick’s hard and flushed a violent red. It looks painful. Bucky thinks of it being trapped in unforgiving denim while Steve took Bucky apart piece by piece and makes a low, mournful sound.

“Ssh,” Steve says, sounding a little choked as he fists his cock and jerks it fast and rough. “You’re good, you’re so good.”

Bucky feels it, feels good, as he watches Steve get himself off, as he closes his eyes for hot spurts of come to stripe his face.

-

It takes Bucky a whole week to figure it out.

In his defense, it’s a hell of a week. It feels like he’s had more sex in these six days than he has his entire life, and that can’t objectively be true, but his sore, well-used body makes a convincing case anyway. And the epiphany hits while he’s pressed to a wall, legs around Steve waist, neck bared for sharp teeth while Steve jerks him off with slow, sure strokes.

His orgasm washes the thought off his head before he has a chance to voice it.

Steve, who came rubbing between Bucky’s thighs a few minutes earlier, sighs and licks Bucky’s moans out of his mouth.

They do wind up in bed, somehow without collapsing in a sweaty heap somewhere. Bucky, who spent the whole time clinging koala-like to Steve, shows his appreciation with a slow, wet kiss that gets Steve clutching him tighter.

“So,” Bucky says once he’s figured out how words work again, “you really planning to fuck me for the first time during your rut?”

Steve looks surprised, but for the life of him, Bucky can’t figure out whether it’s because that was not his intention or if he just didn’t expect Bucky to clue in on it. Either way, it vanishes quickly, replaced by an expression that can only be called coy. It looks odd on Steve’s face, but Bucky’s simply resigned to finding it hot anyway.

“Maybe I am,” Steve says, and Bucky doesn’t mean to, but he hears a challenge in it.

-

“Where to, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Steve’s floor please, JARVIS.”

The elevator starts to rise. Bucky undoes his collar, sighing happily at the solitude. He chose not to wear scent-blockers today knowing full well the looks he’d get today would be different from those that still greeted him when he came in swathed in Steve’s scent. It was still awkward as hell, at least on his part, to navigate the eclectic mix of glances that ranged from questioning to appreciative.

He was fucking ecstatic when Hao came to take over. Guarding Pepper is far more pleasant than anything he’s done for S.H.I.E.L.D, and she is a wonderful person to work for, but she’s also busy as all hell, and that involves more people than Bucky wants to deal with on this particular day.

The doors open to Steve’s floor, and Bucky steps out gratefully.

“Thanks, J!”

JARVIS doesn’t respond, but Bucky doesn’t mind. He’s got a feeling the AI likes him.

Steve’s not here. No one is, not even Romanoff perched like some unsettlingly vivid gargoyle on the coffee table. Steve’s off with Stark, fitting for a new suit, an ordeal that consists of not just measurements but also testing it out against the combined might of the Avengers. He’ll be a while.

Bucky takes a thorough shower, scrubbing off the day’s sweat and grime. He uses Steve’s lube to work himself open, metal fingers prying his hole wide for a metal plug. It’s the smaller one. He doesn’t have the patience to take the bigger one all alone. It’s different when he has Steve to hold him down and stretch him wide and _make_ him take it.

He doesn’t jerk off, doesn’t let himself come, but fuck, he wants to.

He dresses in his own shirt again. It’s plain white and a little thinner than what he usually wears to work. The suit jacket kept him from looking like he was out for a night at the club, but now, clad in nothing but the shirt and a tiny pair of black briefs, Bucky looks like – well, he sure as hell doesn’t look professional.

Bucky splays out on Steve couch, legs spread and head propped on the armrest. He feels fucking indecent with his thighs bared and ass wet with lube and plugged up. His skimpy underwear does nothing to hide his erection and neither do the shirttails.

He can perfectly imagine the sight he makes, spread out like a wanton whore.

Bucky curls his hands into fists and doesn’t reach down to cup himself like he wants to. He waits, instead, scrolling absently through his social media apps and seeing nothing.

He’s been squirming on the couch for a good half an hour by the time Steve finally returns.

Bucky doesn’t look up from his screen when he hears the door open or when it slams shut a little too loudly. He ignores Steve’s startled cursing just as easily, staring at his phone screen like it holds all the secrets to the universe. He does track Steve in his peripheral vision, noting the rapid approach of thick, shapely legs clad in form-fitting jeans.

“Bucky.”

Bucky puts his phone down on his chest and blinks up at the figure looming over the couch.

“Hey there. Welcome home.”

“ _Bucky_.”

He smiles innocently at Steve.

He gets – mauled. There’s no other word for it. His phone tumbles to the floor, but Bucky’s got no fucks to give, not when Steve’s considerable weight is pinning him down on the couch and his tongue’s pushing into Bucky’s mouth with mind-numbing aggression. Alpha pheromones suffuse the air, Steve’s impending rut giving his scent a sharper edge than usual.

Bucky drags it into his lungs even as Steve steals his air and takes it into himself.

“Fucking minx,” Steve says a breathless eternity later, panting the words against Bucky’s mouth. “Think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

Bucky hitches his leg a little higher over Steve’s hips and grins.

“Yeah? What am I doing then?”

Steve grips his chin, thumb and index fingers digging into Bucky’s cheeks. It hurts, a dull ache, and Bucky doesn’t even bother holding back a needy little moan. Steve isn’t unaffected, cheeks flushed and eyes dark as they trail down Bucky’s body.

“You wanna get fucked that bad?”

“You know I do. Been gaggin’ for it, Steve.”

“Jesus,” Steve hisses, cradling Bucky’s jaw now, his huge hand reaching from temple to chin. “Didn’t know you’d be such a slut for it.”

That hits Bucky like a bullet to the gut. He shudders under Steve, face flaring hot.

“You complaining?” he asks hoarsely.

“Now, why would I do that, sweetheart? You know what you do to me. Tight little ass of yours, drives me out of my mind every fucking time.”

“So do something about it,” Bucky whines. “I want you to, Steve.”

Steve’s grin is wide and edged with something that makes Bucky’s stomach clench.

“Ain’t that easy, baby.” He pulls back so suddenly that Bucky reels from the absence of his heavy bulk. “Get up.”

It’s a command, Bucky obeying without even thinking about it. He stumbles when he’s on his feet, but Steve’s there, taking his weight and manhandling him back on the couch. Bucky’s too dazed by the heat of Steve’s hands and the suffocating intensity of his scent to quite pay attention until he’s sprawled across Steve, face down on the couch with his ass set squarely in Steve’s lap.

Steve rucks the shirt up, baring Bucky’s briefs-clad ass. He doesn’t even take it off, just shoves it to the side like he knows what he’ll find.

He still curses, calling for god in a way that would make a priest blush. Then he’s grasping the plug and tugging at it, and it’s Bucky turn to swear a blue streak.

“When?” Steve asks, voice gone deep and rumbling.

“Here. Your shower.”

“Planned it?”

Bucky says nothing, but that’s an answer on its own, and Steve knows it.

The first blow is soft, easy, Steve’s palm thudding on one clothed cheek. Bucky still jerks, getting his arms under him like he’s going to push himself upright, only for Steve to push him firmly down with a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Think I can make you regret it?” Steve asks conversationally. A finger yanks at the elastic of Bucky’s underwear, and it snaps back with a sharp sting. It’s torn off the next moment, Bucky shuddering as he feels an echo of that violence in his own flesh. “Answer me, Buck.”

“Try your worst,” Bucky says, voice high but steady.

It’s permission, as clear as he can make it while keeping the thrill, and Steve shows he understands with a blow that makes Bucky’s eyes roll back in his head.

“Damn,” Steve whistles appreciatively. “Bruise like a peach, don’t you?”

“Like that’s fucking news,” Bucky snaps, wriggling around in Steve’s lap just to make a nuisance out of himself. “That all you got, Captain?”

There’s no breather between the next few hits, Steve rising to the challenge like a goddamn dream. Bucky’s body’s burning, open-handed strikes setting fire to his ass and thighs. He can’t help moving, arching away from the hits on pure, animal instinct, but Steve keeps him pinned almost absently, raining down blows that tear harsh, desperate cries out of Bucky.

When he stops, Bucky’s head is ringing, and it takes him a second to recognize the echoes of his own screams.

His cock’s hard, dripping precum on Steve’s jeans. It hurts, the rough denim rubbing up against his dick each time he grinds down, unintentionally more often than not.

Steve kneads the flesh he struck, and Bucky whimpers through clenched teeth.

“How many will it take, you think?” Steve says, and there’s that thread of dark desire in his voice, but it doesn’t waver, not once. “Ten? Twenty? Until you’re crying and begging me to stop?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky gasps weakly. It turns into a shout when Steve hits him, two fingers slipping between his cheeks. The plug jolts inside him, sending a hot line of sensation through him.

“I will,” Steve promises. “But not tonight. How about this, Buck – I’ll spank you till you come.”

“What? Steve, wait–”

Steve tugs roughly at the plug, shutting Bucky up more effectively than any gag could have.

“Better come fast, baby. Should be easy. You’re already humping me like a dog in rut.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky whines, shocked and a little scandalized, but what does it say about him, really, that every word goes right to his cock, gets it wet and ready to shoot all over Steve’s nice, skinny jeans.

It’s not until Steve starts again that Bucky realizes he was holding back before.

Each blow sears his flesh, sinking deep to settle like fire in Bucky’s bones. He runs out of words, starts mewling like a cat in heat, whole body writhing madly on Steve’s lap. His dick chafes, rubbing up against hard denim, but it’s hard and leaking, and Bucky knows he’d come at the slightest touch, would blow all over them both if Steve so much as stroked a finger along the shaft, hell he’d come if Steve hit him there, would scream at the pain and spill anyway.

But Steve doesn’t touch him except to pin Bucky down and spank him red and blue. He’s got big hands, _strong_ hands, and all that strength is turned on Bucky now, tearing him apart. The plug jolts with each hit, and it’s no accident, the way Steve’s fingers slip between Bucky’s cheeks to land glancing blows on the toy, making it dig cruelly into his walls.

It's not long before Bucky’s a sobbing, keening mess, pleading without words only for the fire in him to burn brighter each time his frantic cries fall on attentive, uncaring ears.

The hand on his back moves away suddenly, not that it matters when Bucky’s shaking too hard to even think of levering himself up. It lands on his ass instead, gripping the sore, swollen skin roughly and pulling it to the side. Bucky has a split-second to know what’s coming, but it’s not enough to prepare him for the strike. It’s a flare of scorching pain on the inside of one cheek. The plug shifts, drives deeper into him.

Another blow, on the other side, and Bucky’s screaming and coming, stars bursting behind tightly shut lids.

Steve says something, maybe makes a noise, but there’s a rushing in Bucky’s ears, the sound of his own thundering heart. His orgasm lasts forever, sweeping through him in white-hot pulses, and he’s a limp, trembling mess in Steve’s lap when it’s done with him.

Steve, as promised, has stopped hitting him, but the slow, soothing strokes of his palms across Bucky’s bruised ass hurts almost as badly.

Bucky whimpers.

“Ssh, sweetheart. C’mere.”

Steve’s gentle this time, but no amount of tenderness can stop Bucky’s body from aching as he’s tugged and coaxed, sweetly but effectively manhandled until he’s seated in Steve’s lap. Like this, he can see the bulge there, can feel precisely how affected Steve is. His face shows it even better, lips wet and eyes more black than blue. He kisses Bucky even as he fumbles with his belt. Bucky wants to help, but his limbs aren’t quite under his control yet.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” Steve tells him, licking over Bucky’s lips. It’s hot and dirty, and Bucky squirms, only to whine when his ass protests the motion. “Ssh, baby, easy, just – can I fuck ‘em?”

“Anything,” Bucky gasps. He’s got no clue what Steve’s talking about, doesn’t care. He means it. “Anything, Steve.”

Steve makes a sound like he’s dying.

Bucky figures out what he meant soon enough as he’s maneuvered back on the couch, face-down and flat. Steve pauses to strip, and then he’s draped over Bucky, the heat of him sinking into his flesh through the thin fabric of the shirt Steve didn’t rip off Bucky.

It's the solid line of his cock slotting between his asscheeks that makes Bucky shiver and groan.

It does hurt, just a little, to have it there. He likes it, the sweet burn. And it hurts more when Steve starts moving, fucking Bucky’s cheeks with the same hushed desperation with which he voiced the question.

Bucky tries to arch his ass, clench up, make it good for Steve, but each time he so much as twitches, Steve growls and sinks his teeth into Bucky’s nape, and he goes limp like a dangling kitten, every nerve in his body surrendering to Steve. Wave after wave of pheromones blanket him; Bucky has never understood why alphas flinched away from another alpha’s scent, and he sure as fuck doesn’t get it now as Steve’s scent curls around him like an adoring, protective cocoon.

Steve’s come wets him up, landing on his back, his ass, between his cheeks. When Steve reaches down to tug out the plug, some of it trickles over his rim too, making Bucky ache to have it _inside_.

“Bucky,” Steve sighs, pleased and fucked-out. He sounds like he very much wants to collapse on Bucky. “Oh, honey, you feel so – so good.”

He nuzzles Bucky’s neck, licking over his scent glands, again and again like a cat grooming its favored human. Bucky bares the side of his neck and welcomes the warm, wet sensation, mind sinking into something sweet and drowsy. He doesn’t even care that he didn’t get what he set out for because this is good, this is perfect, his ass a bruised canvas from Steve’s hands and his skin drenched in come and scent.

Later, Steve will spread cooling gel on the bruises and kiss Bucky all over until he cries out and comes again. But now, Bucky’s a boneless pile of happy alpha, and Steve’s got him.

-

When the day arrives, Bucky is a little nervous.

It’s not just that his previous memories of ruts aren’t good ones. That’s not completely true anyway. Parts of it were good, just not enough that he ever felt compelled to do it again. It’s been ages since he’s gone steady with anyone and asking casual datemates to share ruts or heats always came off as either desperate or creepy. It didn’t help that Bucky’s staunch insistence on using suppressants put off a fair share of his short-lived lovers.

He tells himself Steve’s different. He clearly doesn’t care about what Bucky decides to do with his own body; well, he does care, but not in that pushy, I-know-better-than-you kind of way. He just, well, _cares_. For Bucky. About him. All without trying to interfere in his bodily autonomy.

They’re low standards, Bucky knows, but society’s fun that way. And he’s a goddamn alpha. The shit he gets is nothing compared to the bullshit omegas have to put up with on a daily basis.

Sometimes, misanthropy is very appealing, but then people like Steve Rogers and Pepper Potts shine their own personal rays of sunlight at Bucky. He can’t quite help falling into their orbits, doesn’t want to, but it still scares him sometimes, how fucking gone he is on Steve.

“Hey.”

The soft greeting pulls Bucky out of his reverie. Steve’s standing in front of the closed bathroom door, naked and damp. He’s a vision mortal men aren’t made to withstand. Bucky’s so fucking lucky.

“Hey,” Bucky breathes. “How’s it coming along?”

“Starting to feel it,” Steve answers, rolling his shoulders. “Gonna peak in half a day or so.”

Bucky can see the beginning signs of rut on Steve. He’s flushed, face and throat a pale pink. His eyes are darker than usual too, the blue of them gaining an eerie glimmer. And, well, his cock’s fully erect, almost taunting Bucky with its sheer size.

He shifts a little. If he tries, he can feel the phantom sensation of the plug, the bigger one. Steve’s been opening up for that thing almost daily for the last several days, and Bucky’s as prepared as he can be without actually getting dicked down on the regular. And alright, maybe that would have been a good idea, but at some point, it became a game, trying to see if Steve would lose control and fuck him silly.

Thing is – Steve Rogers is a competitive fuck about the most ridiculous things. Bucky’s no better though.

Plus, there was – and still is – a strange appeal to the idea that the first time Steve would be in him, he’d knot Bucky, tie him down for good.

He shifts again, cock stirring. The reaction doesn’t escape Steve’s sharp gaze. In a flash, he’s across the room and kneeling on the bed, somehow crowding Bucky while still leaving a few feet of space between them.

“Nervous?” Steve asks.

“A little,” Bucky answers truthfully. “But it’s good. I want this.”

“I know,” Steve says, smiling sweetly. He crawls over to Bucky, pushing him flat on the mattress and climbing on top. “Shouldn’t have to tell you, but I ain’t no animal, rut or not. You tell me to stop, I stop.”

“Red’s our word,” Bucky murmurs, already arching his neck and spreading his legs. “You’ll know it?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. Would hear it in my sleep.”

“Sap,” Bucky says impossibly fondly.

Steve nips at his collarbone in gentle retaliation.

It’s not that different from what they usually do, up until a point. Sure, Steve’s scent is thicker in the air, and Bucky feels like it’s coating the lining of his lungs when he breathes it in, but he likes it, likes how it fucking drenches him. Steve’s more impatient too, slithering down Bucky’s body with more haste than he usually shows, eyes on the prize. He still leaves Bucky tingling from head to toe, throat and nipples throbbing from Steve’s teeth.

He sinks into the mattress as Steve eats him out, going at it like a starving man presented with a goddamn buffet. And then it’s fingers, sliding in beside Steve’s tongue, and then just their lube-slick stretch. Steve fucks him with the usual three, and it says something that Bucky barely feels the burn now, his body used to it how wide it’s got to get.

It’s a whole other story when a fourth finger nudges his rim.

“Fuck,” Bucky says into a pillow, tightening instinctively around Steve’s fingers.

He gets a kiss on the small of his back and Steve breathing open-mouthed over the base of his spine. It’s a good distraction, Steve’s mouth clever no matter which part of Bucky’s it’s pressed to, but it’s still not enough to stop from him crying out at the slow, burning breach of that finger into him.

“Breathe, Buck,” Steve coaxes, peppering kisses all over Bucky’s ass. “You need it, baby, I’ll hurt you otherwise.”

“Can take some hurt,” Bucky retorts, almost petulant. “Want it even.”

Steve’s laugh trembles softly against his skin.

“Oh, you’ll get it, Buck. Gonna wring you dry, make you cry. But let me be sweet on you a bit. Open you up all nice.”

And fuck, why would Bucky say no to that?

Steve fucks him on those four fingers for what feels like forever, twisting and spreading them inside Bucky, brushing his prostate to make him keen and tugging his rim wide to steal the air right out of his mouth. When Steve’s satisfied enough to finally pull them out, Bucky’s got a mouthful of spit-soaked pillow and his ass is aching something fierce, both from the stretch and the need to have something bigger inside of it.

As if reading his mind, Steve slots his cock against Bucky’s cheeks, the hot length of it rubbing all against his hole. If Bucky had any strength left in his limbs, it’d drain right out.

“Give it to me,” he mumbles, squirming back against Steve. “Come _on_ , I’m ready.”

Steve gives a strained laugh. Bucky can feel him slick himself up, knuckles brushing Bucky’s ass as Steve fists his cock. He wants to look back, watch it vanish into him, but damn if he can move. He knows, anyway, that the sensation alone is liable to send him to kingdom come, but god, what a way to die.

Steve’s rut hasn’t peaked yet, won’t until after he’s already fucked Bucky some. They’re starting early because Steve’s been horny as all hell the last two days, and this morning, he woke Bucky up octopus-cuddling him and grinding against his thighs. The rest of the morning was much the same, and Bucky put up with being accosted in the bathroom, the kitchen, and the bathroom again before sighing and telling Steve to take a bath and come to bed while he made a little supply nest.

He's still a bit nervous, but it’s a weak flutter under the crushing waves of need.

Steve’s cockhead prods at his hole.

It’s – fuck, it’s huge, and it’s one thing to have it in his hands, his mouth, down his throat, and another entirely to feel it force his already well-stretched rim even wider. Bucky finds himself grateful for those four fingers Steve crammed into him as he pants into his pillow and struggles to adjust to the oversized dick sliding inch by torturous inch into him.

Steve stops well before he bottoms out, but Bucky’s already lit up like a live fucking wire.

Steve’s gentle when he settles over Bucky, keeping his weight off him while still blanketing him with all that feverish heat.

“Buck.” Steve sounds wrecked, and even that sends a shiver through Bucky. “You alright?”

“Don’t mind me,” Bucky says, and hell, he sounds worse than Steve. “Just getting split on your monster cock.”

“Jesus fuck,” Steve rasps, and he sure doesn’t seem to feel insulted. ‘Course, what was Bucky expecting, telling the guy he’s got a big dick? Captain America or not, no alpha is going to see that as anything but a compliment.

And it’s not like Bucky’s even complaining. He never pegged himself as a size queen per se, but – _goddamn_.

“Need to move,” Steve growls into Bucky’s neck, punctuating the words with teeth closing around a sliver of skin. “Bucky, I gotta move.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can – sonuvabitch!”

Steve _fucks_ him open. There’s no other word for it, for the slow drag out and brutal thrust that follows, each one shoving Steve’s cock another inch into Bucky. He claws at the sheets, cries stuck in his throat, but Steve’s a heavy weight over him, keeping Bucky right where he wants as he stuffs him full.

Bucky shouts weakly when Steve’s hips finally slam into his.

He’s – fuck, there’s so much of it, he’s fucking speared on it, ass forced wide around Steve’s cock. And god, he can feel it, the slight bump at the base that wasn’t there yesterday, Steve’s dormant knot showing itself as the rut hits.

“Buck,” Steve pants, whole body quivering over Bucky. “God, you’re so fucking–” Steve does _something_ with his hips, something that makes stars burst in Bucky’s vision. “– _tight_.”

Bucky just keens.

Steve fucks him like that, with short rabbit-thrusts, never really pulling out, never letting Bucky feel anything except the mind-blowing fullness of it. His whole body’s taut and electric, pleasure and pain bolting through blood and bone, settling in his gut as a roiling mass of pure, overwhelming sensation. Bucky can’t imagine what Steve’s knot would be like, not when trying to makes him clench instinctively around Steve. That drives Steve wild, every time, makes him fuck fast and hard into Bucky. Way he’s filled, every goddamn thrust rubs against his prostate, a relentless pressure that robs Bucky of the dregs of sense he’s got left.

He doesn’t know how long Steve just grinds into him like that, hard but lazy, but he sure as fuck notices when the thrusts get longer, faster, harder. It fucks him up, makes him burn inside and out, every cell crying out at the flood of sharp-edged pleasure. His own cock drips incessantly into the mattress, on the verge of orgasm but not quite there, not until the faint bulge on Steve’s cock starts fucking growing.

Steve doesn’t push it inside, just grinds it into Bucky’s hole, letting feel the damn thing growing. And then he’s _out_ , leaving Bucky squirming around the sudden emptiness inside, except he’s barely got time to breathe a word before Steve fucks back in, hard and vicious, pushing his knot past Bucky’s rim just as he comes, filling Bucky with searing heat.

Bucky lets out a shuddering cry, his own orgasm sweeping through him.

Steve’s the one who curses, collapsing on Bucky as his walls ripple around Steve’s growing knot. It’s a ridiculous stretch, but all Bucky can feel is the rush of heat through his veins, each pulse of it sharper as Steve fucks him like he just can’t help himself.

When it’s over, his spent dick lies in a pool of its own mess, and Bucky’s limp on the bed, caught on Steve’s knot and crushed under his weight.

He tries, more instinctive than deliberate, to move. His body reacts before he even registers the sensation, everything going hot and liquid. Steve’s knot’s fucking huge inside of him, stretching Bucky wider than he ever thought was possible. It’s settled snugly inside him, a wide bundle of heated flesh nestled against his hole. His rim’s stretched to the point of pain, there’s come sloshing inside of him, and Bucky wonders what it says about him that he loves it so fucking much.

That he’s a goddamn masochist, probably.

Steve’s not complaining, that’s for sure. He’s nuzzling at Bucky’s neck, licking over his scent glands and biting sweetly at his nape, showing every sign of a happy alpha whose higher brain functions have currently been relegated to his knot.

Bucky, with great effort, turns his head, wordlessly asking for a kiss that Steve bestows on him with great enthusiasm.

That’s when he starts to move, almost like he was waiting for Bucky to show some sign of life before wrecking him some more.

There’s not much Steve can do, though, not much left for him to take with his knot locked inside Bucky. He’s still hard, orgasm aside, as if the rut has erased what little refractory period he already had. It’s the oddest sensation, being full of come and plugged so tight and still getting fucked. Steve’s knot tugs at Bucky’s rim each time either of them even twitches, and there’s no hope of it pulling free without tearing _something_ , but fuck if it doesn’t feel good, that sharp spear of pain and throb of pleasure.

It's almost relaxing, Bucky’s body so completely wrapped up in Steve’s, his rut-spiced scent an almost physical weight on Bucky’s skin. It’s nice too, to just lie there and drift, rocking gently with each twitch of Steve’s hips.

-

Steve’s rut peaks, like he predicted, half a day later. It’s some unholy hour of the night, and it’s eerily quiet in the Tower, with none of the usual city sounds that filter through Bucky’s apartment windows.

He’s understandably disoriented when something wakes him up. Awareness dawns not long after, his body adjusting half a second before his mind does, hips rolling back into Steve’s fingers. There are two in him, already, stretching him open all easy because he’s still loose from getting fucked all day and knotted the once. Steve’s got his mouth open over Bucky’s scent glands, sucking gently as if to coax a reaction out of him.

And boy, he fucking gets it. Bucky can smell the wave of arousal from him joining the pheromones already thick in the air. Steve growls, pleased and possessive, and sucks harder, adds another finger.

Bucky gropes back awkwardly, and it reverberates through him, the rumbling groan Steve lets slip when Bucky’s fingers find his cock.

“C’mon,” Bucky mutters, still half asleep. He tugs Steve’s body forward by the dick and wriggles his own ass back invitingly. “Just go in.”

Steve growls again, mostly nonverbal now that he’s peaked. Bucky’s been expecting that, but the thrill that shudders through his body at the animalistic sounds takes him by surprise.

It’s just that – there’s something about Steve like this, half a slave to his instincts and so fucking focused on Bucky, wanting him, _needing_ him.

Steve slides into him, a slow, building intrusion. Bucky’s walls clench and he forces them to relax, to let Steve in. He can almost feel that ache, that impossibly fullness of having Steve’s knot lodged in him. He whines at the memory of how it felt when it deflated and slipped out, washing Bucky’s thighs in a flood of warm come.

The sound pulls an answering groan out of Steve, and he bottoms out, hips flush to Bucky’s, his chest molded to Bucky’s back. Steve’s holding him too, muscular warms both wrapped around Bucky, making him feel small the way he hasn’t ever since the army packed him with muscle and S.H.I.E.L.D screwed a metal arm into his left shoulder. He likes it, Steve knows he likes it, and it makes Bucky feel all soft and bubbly inside to know that Steve remembers it even like this, half-awake and caught up with his dick.

Steve tongues Bucky’s scent glands, tracing the thick skin almost questioningly.

“M’good,” Bucky tells him, awkwardly patting his hips.

Steve kisses him sweetly, lips pressing wet and gentle all along Bucky’s throat and shoulder. He bites down gently on the scar tissues surrounding the metal, and Bucky, drowsy as he is, can’t help moaning and squirming a little. Steve holds him tighter at that and starts fucking, and it doesn’t matter how used Bucky has become to his cock in the last several hours, it’s still a hell of a thing to have it move inside of him, carving a space for itself inside soft, wet flesh.

He knows, even before Steve’s breathing becomes harsh and ragged, that it won’t last long. Steve must have been wound up like hell before he even started working Bucky open, and his knot’s quick to grow, locking them together between one slow stroke and the next. Come rushes into him, a sudden flood of wet fire.

Bucky gasps weakly, shuddering against Steve. He’s held tighter like he’s Steve’s favorite plush toy, his neck gnawed on with lazy possessiveness.

“Mine,” Steve says, voice low and guttural. 

It goes right to Bucky’s dick, makes it twitch to life.

“Yours,” Bucky agrees, heat suffusing his face and coiling tight in his gut.

Steve makes a happy noise and curls tighter into Bucky. Bucky reaches between his legs and starts to jerk himself off, but he gets maybe three strokes in before Steve’s hand covers his, taking over the place eagerly. Bucky lets him, surrendering easily to being held and made love to, because he’s got no other phrase for this; Steve’s sweet kisses on his neck and his fist tight over Bucky’s cock.

It makes him feel so–

“Think I love you,” Bucky says, a little helpless with it.

Maybe it’s unfair to both of them to say it now, when Steve’s knotted him and is pushing Bucky fast towards his own edge, but it feels so right, as thrilling as it’s terrifying. And he can always say it later, when Steve’s out of his rut and Bucky’s not scent-drunk. Winnifred Barnes didn’t raise no coward, and this is the last thing Bucky wants to run from anyway.

Steve’s teeth graze Bucky’s scent glands, sending a sharp pulse of pleasure through him. He bites down, and it’s not gentle but also not deep enough to draw blood and stake a claim.

But it’s there, the possibility of wearing Steve on his skin for the rest of their lives together, and that’s the thought Bucky comes to, spilling with a soft cry into their joined hands.

-

Steve catches his breath, several long moments after his entire brain seems to have slid out through his dick. When he looks down, the view threatens to knock his hard-earned air right out of his lungs.

Bucky’s a fucking vision, spread out on his back on the bed, both arms raised over his head to clutch the groaning headboard. Steve was right, he does take knot like he was born for it, born for _Steve_ , but even his wildest fantasies couldn’t have conjured an image so exquisitely lovely.

Steve drags his eyes down Bucky, drinking in the bruised throat and the swollen nipples and the limp cock covered in its own cooling release. He spreads Bucky’s legs a little wider and echoes his gutted groan when he sees Bucky’s red, abused hole stretched brutally tight around Steve’s knot.

“So fucking pretty,” he praises, reverence dripping from his voice.

Bucky just tosses his head to the sides, eyes dark and glazed.

Steve’s rut is waning, his senses sharper, thoughts clearer. But Bucky’s in a whole other state, wrecked from three days of nearly nonstop fucking and so goddamn gorgeous with it. He’s got Steve all over his skin, dried come and indents of teeth and a motley of colorful bruises. Steve loves him like this. Love him any way, every way, but damn if he doesn’t want to keep Bucky just like this, here in this world of two.

All Steve’s.

Steve grinds into Bucky, trying to get deeper though there’s nowhere to go. Bucky makes that soft, keening sound that Steve’s heart trips over each and every time. His ass tightens around Steve’s knot, milking it violently.

He leans down to kiss Bucky, moaning when Bucky’s lips part for him with a shuddering sigh. He licks in, tastes himself on Bucky’s tongue, and thinks that maybe they don’t need a sex-drenched world of their own for Bucky to be his.

Bucky kisses back, lazy and sweet, like he’s saying _yeah, Steve, no shit_.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a comment if you can <3


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